


more than a band

by basha



Category: Lemonade Mouth (2011)
Genre: Frottage, Getting Together, Multi, OT5, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:00:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23272846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basha/pseuds/basha
Summary: Charlie Delgado's life on tour would be a lot easier if he wasn't in love with all four of his bandmates.
Relationships: Olivia White/Wen Gifford/Mo Banjaree/Stella Yamada/Charlie Delgado
Comments: 8
Kudos: 79





	more than a band

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe this is the first OT5 work in this fandom! I love these 5 so much. 
> 
> A couple of disclaimers: Scott isn't in this because I didn't want him to be. The timeline and geography and pretty much everything about the music industry are completely made up. 
> 
> Enjoy!

At the meeting with the record company, Charlie can feel his fingers tap tap tapping away at the arm of his chair. He wills them to stop but they don’t and he can’t seem to make them. He looks around to see if he’s annoying anyone, but his bandmates are all used to his fidgeting by now, and their agent and the record executives either don’t notice or are politely pretending not to. 

The record execs are talking talking talking but Charlie can’t focus, can never really focus properly without drumsticks in his hands or music playing loud enough that it drowns out all of the other noise in his head. His bandmates seem excited, though, smiling widely at the record execs and their agent and each other, even Stella, who doesn’t really like to smile. One of the execs says something that makes Mo grab his right hand, stopping the tapping just for a minute, and he bites down hard on his lip until the world comes back into focus. 

He hears the word “tour.” He hears Wen say “California” and Olivia say “New York City.” 

“Um, I’m not so sure that’s a great idea,” he says, interrupting Stella in the middle of a sentence. Every eye in the room turns to him, but he only cares about four sets of them, all of which are some combination of angry, confused, and concerned. 

“Can we have a minute?” Mo asks in that sickly sweet voice she uses on authority figures. “I think we need to have a quick emergency band meeting. Just to get on the same page.”

“Sure,” one of the record execs says. “That’s a good idea, actually, why don’t we all take five.” Charlie can feel someone (Stella, probably) grab him by the back of the shirt, like a mother cat with a kitten, and pull him up to his feet. Mo grabs his arm and drags him out of the room, and the others follow. Stella leads them into another, smaller conference room. 

“Are we allowed to be here?” Olivia asks, nervously, further cementing Charlie’s belief that Olivia is the only other sane person in this band. 

“Who fucking cares?” Stella asks, further cementing Charlie’s belief that she’s a chaos spirit who thrives on anarchy. “What’s your hang up, Charlie? Most people would kill for this kind of opportunity!”

“Think about it,” Wen interrupts, a little less harsh by his partner-in-crime. “The five of us, all together, performing night after night for sold out audiences singing all of our songs back to us. And then the rest of the time is all ours, no parents or school getting in the way. We’ll have so much time together!”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” Charlie mutters, low enough that they don’t hear him.

“Speak up, Charlie,” Mo instructs. 

“I just like the way things are now,” he says, trying not to sound pathetic. He really means it. This has been the best year of his life: an afternoon spent playing at Dante’s and hanging out in Stella’s backyard is better than anything else he could imagine.

“We’re a band, Charlie,” Stella reminds him, slightly gentler than before. “We have an album out, and people all over the world are listening to it. This is our shot, Char. It’s now or never.” Charlie looks around at Mo and Olivia and Wen, then back at Stella, and sees the same hopeful smile on each of their faces. Mo grabs his hand and squeezes it. Charlie wishes his bandmates would stop forcing him to make life-altering decisions. Still, he feels the way he does that first day at Dante’s, hoping that the coin would come up heads: he wouldn’t want to miss a single magical thing this magical group of people could do. 

“Fine,” he says, reluctantly, “but I want new drums.”

The tour is exactly as much of a mess as Charlie had feared it would be, for exactly the reasons he feared. It’s not all bad: the concerts are absolutely amazing, Charlie gets to sit in the back and play as hard as he wants and watch his bandmates all around him, doing what they do best. But even their performances have a slightly strange quality; the stages are so much bigger than the ones they’re used to, which means that they’re much farther apart on stage than they like to be. Unfortunately, the rest of the time, they’re  _ much _ closer than normal. Between days on the tour bus and nights in hotels, hardly a minute goes by where they’re apart. Charlie watches as it slowly starts to drive his bandmates crazy. 

Stella, who’s lost without a cause to rail on about, turns her righteous rage against her bandmates, then pouts when they don’t take it well. She and Mo get into endless fights about acceptable amounts of time to hog the bathroom and who gets to pick the music they play on the bus, and there’s an almost week-long period in which they don’t talk at all. Stella yells at Olivia for being too quiet and Wen for being too loud. When she’s not yelling she’s playing the bass with headphones plugged into the audio jack, so they can’t hear a thing and can only see her hands moving on the strings and the fierce look on her face.

Mo, reveling in her newfound freedom, clearly feels penned in by their strict itinerary and begs their manager to give them more free time when they play in major cities. He usually gives her the time, won over by her charm, which means fewer hours of sleep for everybody. Clearly it’s not enough time for her, though, and Mo starts pushing the limits, heading out by herself and arriving back at the bus later and later. At one point, Stella loses her temper and calls Mo selfish, and they have a legendary row that ends in another day of ignoring each other and Olivia in tears. 

Wen, who needs attention to survive, is apparently not satisfied by the crowds screaming his name. He spends his time on tour trying to win his bandmates’ focus one at a time, and doesn’t seem to mind if the attention is positive or negative as long as it’s his. They’re all happy to entertain him, Charlie and Olivia in particular, but they all have their limits, and Wen clearly doesn’t know when to stop. He escalates to pranks when the rest of the band starts to get annoyed, which pisses everyone off at him, even Olivia.

Olivia might be having the worst time of them all, except Charlie. She loves them, and she loves performing, but she’s a homebody at heart, and being so far away from her Gran and her kittens clearly freaks her out. She spends a fair amount of time crying in spells of homesickness, and she spends the rest of the time with headphones shoved into her ears, scribbling lyrics. Her intense introversion leaves her drained and irritable, until the only contact she can bear is silently cuddling with Wen or Mo. 

Charlie, however, feels that his pain takes the cake. He tries to stay out of the way. He taps and drums endlessly, unable to stop, but other than that, he doesn’t make a sound unless drawn into conversation by one of his bandmates. But, inside, he can feel himself slowly dying. It’s hard enough to be trapped 24/7 with the same four people; but it’s so much harder when you’re in love with all of them.

Charlie can’t remember when his crush on Mo became a collective crush on Mo, Stella, Olivia and Wen, but it’s pretty much been ruining his life ever since. They’re his bandmates, his best friends, the four people on Earth he knows like the back of his hand and trusts with his whole heart. 

They spend a lot of time together, all five of them. It’s a blend of pain and pleasure for Charlie every time they play together or lie together in the grass in one of their backyards or even sit with each other in the school cafeteria, stealing each other’s food and toasting each other with cans of lemonade. They fit together, the five of them, like perfect puzzle pieces; they have since the very first day they met, and they’ve only gotten closer and more in sync.

Over time, they’ve gotten more and more successful as a band, expanding to new venues and eventually getting a record deal with the same label that sponsors Rising Star. None of that matters to Charlie. He just likes to play, and the people he plays with. 

He likes them too much. 

They start to head east, and emotions on the tour bus start to improve. Olivia cries less and sings more, which brightens everyone’s mood, until they have daily sing-alongs and freestyle competitions on the bus. Wen blossoms under Olivia’s renewed attention, and his good mood reminds Stella of how much fun the two of them have together. The pranks don’t stop, but now they’re part of a prank war between the band’s two most childish members. There’s something about seeing Stella with literal egg on her face that cheers up Mo, and she joins in too. Charlie doesn’t see it, but he’s sure the two girls talked and made up, because he sees them slip off after their concert one day, and in the morning, the two of them team up to pelt the others with water balloons, and clutch each other as they laugh at Olivia, Wen, and Charlie’s shocked (and drenched) faces.

Charlie’s not immune to the improved mood among his bandmates, but it makes his heart hurt in a different way. Every time he’s with the five of them, jamming on the bus or joking around during soundcheck or watching a movie in one of their hotel rooms, the voice in his head that asks him why he doesn’t just tell them gets louder and louder until it’s all he can hear, until they are the only things he can see and he can’t look away. 

It comes to a head after their first show in Chicago. It’s an absolutely incredible show, in front of an incredible crowd, and when they come off stage, Charlie is still vibrating with adrenaline and excitement. He’s not the only one: Mo and Stella are practically bouncing off the walls backstage.

“Let’s go out,” Mo proposes, throwing an arm around Stella’s shoulders and squeezing. “Please please please, come on guys, we’re playing again here tomorrow night, we have time--”

“I’m in,” Charlie says instantly.

“Yes!” Stella says. “This is what I’m talking about! I’ll come too.” They turn to Olivia and Wen, who are looking at each other. 

“I think I’ll just go back to the hotel,” Olivia says softly.

“Yeah, me too,” Wen stutters. Mo and Stella giggle and start to sing “Olivia and Wen, sitting in a tree…” as Wen and Olivia leave. Charlie laughs along, but all he can picture is Olivia and Wen in their hotel, kissing and holding each other and generally being as in love as they pretend not to be. He’s half endeared by the image, and half heartbroken. Mo snaps him out of it by jumping on his back.

“Let’s go!” She shouts. “Carry me, Charlie!” They get to the club within twenty minutes and get in without a problem. 

“We’re rockstars!” Stella tells Charlie after a few drinks. “They love us!” The first club turns out to be too “tame” for Mo and Stella, who at that point are a few drinks past drunk. Charlie himself isn’t so sober. He leans on Stella for support as they get to the next place. It’s dark inside, the lights are pulsing and multicolored, and the music is so loud it’s practically deafening. It’s perfect. The dance floor is packed, but the three of them carve out a little space for themselves near the back. They’re all pressed up against each other as they dance, so close it should be uncomfortable, and Charlie is so in love with both of them. He can’t help but stare at them both, at the way the pink and orange strobe lights only catch slivers of them at a time, turning them into modern art. 

“What are you looking at?” Mo asks loudly, not to Charlie but to Stella, and then they’re kissing right in front of him, pressed flush against each other on the dance floor of a crowded club. Charlie’s heart pangs with the same complicated duality he felt when thinking about Olivia and Wen together.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” he says, turning around, already contemplating if it would be better to hook up with someone else or just go back to the hotel room. Mo grabs his arm, and pulls him back. 

“Don’t be stupid!” she shouts, and then she reaches up and kisses him. Charlie’s thought about kissing Mo a lot, more so than any of his other bandmates, but it’s so different than he imagined it back when he first loved her from afar. He didn’t really know her, then, he was in love with a fantasy version of her. Now that he knows her, really knows her, he knows that he was almost entirely wrong about her. The real Mo is so much less refined, so much sharper, and so much better. Kissing her exceeds his wildest expectations. 

Mo moves away, and Stella steps forward. Charlie braces for her to slap him, or something, but instead she reaches forward and kisses him too. Kissing Stella is different than kissing Mo, more give and take, but no less incredible. Charlie feels something on his neck, and he sees that it’s Mo, leaning over behind him to suck on his pulse point. 

When they pull away, in unison, Charlie stands perfectly still for what is maybe the very first time in his whole life, stunned.

“What--?” But the right question to ask refuses to solidify in his brain. Stella and Mo both burst into giggles, holding onto each other, starting to dance again. After a minute, he does too. He convinces them to go back to the hotel a little while later, and escorts them up to their room with three aspirin and a bottle of water each.

“You’re the best, Charlie,” Mo says, half asleep against his shoulder. “Love you.” Charlie blushes and can’t seem to say it back. Mo doesn’t mind, she just smiles at him lazily and walks into the room. Stella blows a kiss at him, then shuts the door behind her. Charlie shakes his head a few times, trying to clear the confusion of the day out of his mind. Then he heads down the hall to find the room he shares with Wen. He didn’t see if Olivia was in the girls’ room or not, and he almost expects to find her asleep in Wen’s bed. But when he opens the door, all he sees is Wen, stirring awake and blinking blearily into the light Charlie’s letting in from the hallway. 

“Have a good time?” Wen asks. Charlie nods, mutely. Wen chuckles. “The hickey on your neck is certainly a good sign.” Charlie touches his neck where Mo was biting at him, and looks away.

Charlie waits until Wen is asleep to jerk off. The next morning, the band has breakfast at the venue before soundcheck. Charlie finds himself staring at Mo and Stella more than usual, but neither of them give off any sign that they experienced something earth shaking the night before. Mo stares blankly at her muffin, and Stella winces whenever anyone makes too loud a sound. He waits and waits but they don’t talk about the night before. Charlie can’t help but to feel lost and confused and suddenly, overwhelmingly, lonely. 

Charlie works really really hard to put the memories of that night out of his mind, and he almost succeeds, until he and Wen have to share a bed. They’ve been sharing hotel rooms for the whole tour, which isn’t exactly easy for Charlie. He’s spent many a night lying awake just listening to Wen breathe, and many a morning averting his eyes as Wen gets changed. But all of that becomes suddenly preferable as Charlie opens the door to their room to find only one bed.

He calls their manager, who tells him that it was the only room left. He calls Stella, just to avoid going in the room, and she laughs at him and tells him to get some sleep. Then he walks into the room. Wen is already in their bed, in his stupid matching flannel pajamas that Charlie always makes fun of. 

“I could sleep on the floor?” Charlie offers. He’s changed into his usual sleepwear, an old tee-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, and he suddenly feels underdressed and exposed.

“Don’t be stupid,” Wen says. “Get in the damn bed.” Charlie does, trying to leave space between himself and Wen, but Wen cuddles up close, leaning on his side and looking at Charlie with his patented puppy dog eyes. “Tell me a secret,” Wen commands. “Something sleepover worthy.” Charlie thinks for a long time, then ends up saying the one thing he didn’t want to say.

“I’ve kissed Mo and Stella.”

“Both of ‘em?” Wen says. He’s smiling, but there’s something a little off about it. Charlie shrugs and looks down. His fingers drum anxiously against his legs. 

“Your turn,” he says. “And you can’t tell me about kissing Olivia. That doesn’t count.” Wen flushes. 

“I haven’t kissed Olivia,” he admits.

“What?” Charlie is genuinely surprised, he (and he’d bet Mo and Stella too) just assumed that Wen and Olivia, who so clearly like each other, just weren’t into PDA and have been keeping their relationship on the down low. “Why not?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Wen says, sounding somewhat miserable. “It’s just...it’s complicated.”

“Oh,” Charlie says. “Sorry, man.”

“Don’t ‘man’ me,” Wen says. “We ought to go to bed.” Charlie wants to keep talking but he doesn’t want to keep Wen up so he agrees, rolling over to turn out the light and submerge the room in darkness. They lie side by side in silence for what could be minutes or could be an hour, until Wen rolls forward until he’s half on top of Charlie. Charlie feels Wen’s hard on pressing against his own.

“Charlie?” Wen whispers.

“I’m here,” Charlie says. Those words seem to trigger something in Wen, because he pulls himself fully on top of Charlie. The sensation is so good, so much better than touching himself ever has been. He moans, and Wen leans down to kiss him. They establish a rhythm, rocking against each other to the beat in Charlie’s head, until they finish in near unison.

“Fuck,” Charlie says. “Wen--”

“Go to sleep, Charlie,” Wen says. He doesn’t sound regretful, which is good, but he has rolled away from Charlie, so he’s not facing him, not even touching him. “We’ll clean up in the morning.”

“Okay,” Charlie agrees, voice small. He hears Wen fall asleep long before he does, but when he wakes up in the morning, sticky and uncomfortable, Wen is gone.

They don’t speak of it again. As soon as he can, Charlie buys himself a new pair of sweatpants. 

For what Charlie feels are very understandable reasons, he begins to feel quite awkward around Stella, Mo, and Wen. Logically, he starts spending a lot of time with Olivia. It isn’t hard, Olivia is very easy to spend time with, even if she does seem somewhat bemused at Charlie’s sudden desire to always be at her side. 

Olivia is by far the softest member of the band, and Charlie always feels softer when he’s with her, just as he always feels stronger around Stella and smarter around Mo and funnier around Wen. Hanging out with Olivia involves a lot of sitting together on the couch in the back of the tour bus and listening to music or playing cards.

“You are such an old lady,” he teases. Olivia sticks her tongue out at him. 

“You’re just mad because I’ve beat you at Go Fish three times now,” she replies. “Wanna make it four?” Charlie looks over to the front of the bus, where Mo and Wen are arm wrestling while Stella referees. If he goes over there, they’ll rope him in, and then they’ll have to touch him, and then he’ll lose his mind. 

“Absolutely,” he says. He stays in her orbit the next few days, until they reach Boston, where they’ve sold out two nights in a row. Mo decides that they should go clubbing again, and insists that this time, the whole band should come. Wen gives in easily.

“No,” Olivia says with surprising firmness. 

“Come on, Liv,” Stella wheedles. “You got over your stage fright, right? Face your fears.” Olivia smiles softly. 

“It’s different,” she says. “It’s not that I can’t. It’s that I don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to go either,” Charlie blurts. “I’ll stay with you, Liv.” Stella furrows her brow, but Olivia smiles at him sunnily. 

“I’d love that, Char.” So that night, after the show (which Charlie has to admit was not their best), Wen, Stella, and Mo head out for a club, and Charlie and Olivia go by themselves to dinner. The place is surprisingly nice. They eat pasta in candlelight, talking and laughing the way they used to in the Johnny Rockets back home. They share a creme brulee for dessert. Charlie pays, and Olivia thanks him. 

“You’re such a gentleman, Charlie,” she says. “I’ve always liked that about you.” They walk through a nearby park together, reminiscing about the first time the band ever played together. At some point, Olivia takes his hand, and his heart skips a beat. “Hey,” Olivia says after a little while, “wanna hear something new I’ve been working on?”

Olivia leads him back to the hotel and into the girls’ room. In the room, Olivia doesn’t turn on the lights, so Charlie doesn’t either. The room is illuminated by the light of the moon and the streetlamp just below the window. There are only two beds, and Charlie wonders for the first time how they work out who shares and who sleeps alone. Olivia takes something out of her bag, then sits on the floor between the beds, leaning back against one of them. Charlie does the same facing her and sees the musical instruments in her hands.

“A ukulele?” he asks. Olivia blushes softly and laughs.

“It was the only instrument I could sneak off the bus without the roadies getting mad,” she explains, and he laughs Olivia shifts slightly, and suddenly they’re not joking any more. This is Olivia White, one of the greatest songwriters of their generation, playing something new just for him. It feels sacred. The song she sings is beautiful and bittersweet, all about unrequited love and yearning for someone you shouldn’t want. It brings tears to Charlie’s eyes. 

“Did you like it?” she asks when she’s done, and Charlie knows she’s not just being modest.

“Olivia,” he breathes, and then they’re both leaning in at the same time and they’re kissing, chastely, the uke pressed between them. Olivia pulls away first, and there are tears in her eyes. 

“I’m so sorry,” Olivia says.

“Don’t be,” Charlie replies. “I won’t tell Wen.” Olivia smiles sadly. 

“I won’t either,” she replies, cryptically. Charlie stands up, feeling unsteady, like a pony standing up for the first time. 

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he says.

“See you.” He forces himself to turn around and leave her sitting there on the floor. Then he goes up to his room and screams into his pillow. 

That night, Charlie lies awake for hours, staring up at the ceiling.

He replays each kiss with his bandmates in his head, trying to remember the exact look on their faces, and wonders if he tricked them all somehow into brief moments of insanity. He thinks back to his earlier conversation with Olivia, of his bandmates the first time they played together, the magical spell of playing together so perfectly wrapping around them like a golden chain of light, binding them together for the rest of their lives. 

He thinks of Stella’s smirk and Mo’s laugh and the look on Wen’s face when he raps and the way Olivia tucks her hair behind her ears. He thinks about how much he loves them all, and how hopeless it all feels. 

He falls asleep feeling sorry for himself. He dreams of his bandmates.

It’s Stella who gets it all sorted out, of course; proactive, impatient, wonderful Stella. 

She wakes them all up early in the morning and drags them to a diner. Either she’s pulled some strings or it’s a pretty unpopular place, because they get seated in a booth in an otherwise empty back section. She makes them wait until the food has arrived until she tells them what it’s for. Then she leans forward, a piece of pancake speared on her fork.

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s get this out into the open. Who’s kissed who?” There is a long, charged silence in which no one makes eye contact. Then Wen clears his throat. 

“I’ve kissed everyone but Liv,” he says, staring at his lap. Olivia flushes a deep pink and bites her lip.

“Me too,” Stella says, sounding triumphant. 

“Me too,” Mo chimes in. Everyone looks over at Charlie. He looks over at Olivia, trying to be subtle and failing miserably. 

“I’ve kissed Charlie,” she admits quietly. Wen makes a noise in the back of his throat. 

“Which I guess means Charlie’s kissed everybody,” Stella says. “Nice work Charles.” Mo giggles.

“What the fuck is happening?” Charlie asks as calmly as possible. Olivia makes a noise of assent. 

“Mo kissed Wen last night,” Stella explains. “And I’ve already kissed them both, and Charlie, and I know Mo kissed Charlie too.” She gestures to each of them as she talks about them. “And we’ve all seen the way Wen and Liv look at each other. And at Charlie for that matter. So I thought there was a pretty good chance that I’m not the only one who feels the way I do.” They look around at each other, flustered smiles slowly spreading across their faces.

“Wait,” Olivia says. “What do we--how would this work?” That seems to stump Stella for a moment, but Mo leans in with a spark of an idea in her eyes.

“If Stella’s right, and we all like each other, why can’t we all just be together? Like let’s all be in one big relationship. Kind of like we are now, but with kissing. Well, more kissing.”

“But that’s--” Charlie can’t seem to articulate all the thoughts going through his mind. “Is that possible?” Stella sits up straight, shoulders back.

“We’re Lemonade Mouth,” she says. “Anything’s possible.”

“Olivia,” Wen speaks up for the first time. “I can’t...I gotta know. Why...why haven’t we kissed yet?” Olivia blinks back tears.

“Wen,” she says, “I’ve loved you since the second grade and you never noticed me until last year. I didn’t want to...I wasn’t sure if you really liked me or if I just really wanted you to. And when you told me you liked me  _ and _ all the others...I just needed time to adjust to the idea. And to realize that I like all of them too.” 

“Oh,” Wen says softly. “For the record, I really really like you, Liv.”

“Well,” Olivia says, smiling from ear to ear. “Okay then.”

“I like you too,” Charlie blurts, unable to keep it in any longer. “I like all of you. So much.” 

“Moment of truth,” Stella says, “who’s in?” She puts her hand out into the middle of the table.

“We’re really gonna try this?” Mo asks, sounding excited.

“We’ll have to be really intentional about our communication,” Olivia says. “We’ll have to be really good about it. Much better than we’ve been lately.”

“Who’s in?” Stella insists. Charlie puts his hand in, then Olivia, then Wen. Mo laughs, then puts her hand in.

“Oh, what the hell,” she says. “It’s worth a try.”

The show they play that night is widely agreed to be the best they’ve ever played. 


End file.
